It’s the 20th anniversary of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, which is celebrating by offering its second annual September through-hike: this year’s trek goes from Castro Valley north to Martinez over five days from Wednesday, Sept. 2, to Sunday. Sept 7. I’m still unsure why they’ve picked the hottest time of the year to do it, but one of last year’s hikers told me she had a fine time despite the warmth.
It’s $225 if you want to hike all five days, or $50 per day to hike along — planners haul your camping and cooking gear; you just show up with your day pack and start walking (10 to 15 miles per day, so don’t sign up if you can’t handle that distance.)
As to the weather issues: bear in mind these are not the blast furnace hills of Mount Diablo/Mission Peak, but the shady forested hills of Tilden, Redwood and Chabot parks and other climes much closer to the bay and its cooling breezes. There will be hot moments in the sun — plus a couple days of sharing the trail with equestrians (hey, who doesn’t like to see horses?). Highlights from the Ridge Trail’s page:
The route includes Cull Canyon Regional Preserve in the South, through EBMUD watershed, Anthony Chabot and Redwood Regional Parks, Huckleberry and Sibley Regional Preserves, across EMBUD watershed high above the Caldecott Tunnel to Tilden and Wildcat Regional Parks, Eagle’s Nest Trail, Kennedy Grove Recreation Area, Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve, the Pinole Watershed and finishes on Muir Heritage Land Trust land in Martinez. Camp opens at Bort Meadow in Anthony Chabot Regional Park Tuesday, the day before the hike starts., On Thursday we move to Sequoia Arena in Joaquin Miller Park and on Saturday to the Es Anderson Equestrian Camp in Tilden Park. Friday’s hike is an optional 10-mile loop hike near Redwood Park. Hikers and horses will share trail primarily on 2 days only as the equestrians will largely follow a different route.
The hike is limited to 75 people — through-hikers had preference for reservations till yesterday; now it’s first-come, first-serve and you might get placed on a wait list. I’d be tempted if I were physically capable of planning that far ahead.
Related: Review of Jean Rusmore’s guide to the Bay Area Ridge Trail.
I dunno, the thought of 75 people tromping through my peaceful, wonderful segment of the Ridge Trail from Sibley to Tilden, gives me pause. On the plus side, maybe some of the rogue mountain bikers coming the opposite direction will have to make their way through all 75 of them!
This is the first I head of this.. Might be fun since they carry all your stuff!! But I won the Yosemite High Sierra Hikes lottery…doing the 5 camps that week.
Rick D.
It would be nice if we all had our own parks. But when you live next to 8 million other folks it’s kind of hard to limit access to just Ralphs. And while the section between Sibley and Tilden is indeed closed to bikes, the idea behind the Ridge Trail is to have a MULTIUSE trail that circles the bay – not a trail just for Ralphs. It’s unfortunate that instead of having a hike that includes all user groups, the Ridge Trail has so many bike “gaps” that only hikes and equestrians are able to participate in “through hikes”.
Instead of park users arguing about access we should be working to encourage more people to enjoy the parks. A rich recreational experience goes hand in hand with resource protection. If you want a new generation of folks to realize the importance of protecting our parks, we need to create opportunities for all users.
Cyclists deserve trail opportunities just like all the other park users currently enjoy. Narrow trails make cyclists happy, slow us down, and are less environmentally damaging then plowing up the ranch roads every couple years.
I was just over at Mid Pen on Wednesday and the road to trail conversions where wonderful. In comparison to EBRPD’s wide, ugly, hot, dusty, bike freeways it was heaven. EBRPD should reclaim the existing ranch roads by including rocks and other objects to emphasize turns and avoid long straightaways, yet still providing clear sight lines. And we should all work to close the user gaps along the Ridge Trail to include all users. It’s a win for recreation opportunities, and a win for the environment.
I really do support bikes on most trails – have a bike myself. But on these narrow single track trails like that one section I like, a bike is a real hazard. You don’t hear it coming. Being on foot, I can step off the trail in most spots, though maybe into Poison Oak, but there are kids on horseback riding that trail. Even a hiker has got to be careful with horses. If you surprise them they spook easily. If I see a horse, I start talking to it, and continue to talk to it and the rider till they are past.
The trail, narrow as it is, does not slow bikes down to nearly the speed of foot or horse traffic. Some kid is going to be thrown from a horse and seriously injured if not worse if they can’t figure out a way to keep bikes off that segment. If it is going to be a narrow trail where bikes are allowed it should be bikes only.
However, on that particular segment of trail it is very easily bypassed by low traffic roads for Ridge Trail riders. What remains is a narrow wildlife corridor between the area south of the Caldecott Tunnel and north of it. Another parallel trail thru that same corridor would have a bad effect on the wildlife, and I would rather see the existing trail widened to support bikes than add a trail. It would be a big loss though. The existing trail has a pristine nature that would be destroyed.
My thought, and maybe avid cyclists can correct me, is that narrow trails are a challenge that the riders enjoy. The joy is that of overcoming an obstacle course. That is a fundamental difference from what a walker enjoys on the trail. I see a lizard or rattlesnake, that’s something to be enjoyed. For the bikes, it’s run over and probably regretted.
On the Pacific Crest Trail, which I think is no bikes for its entire length, though there you have rogue motercycles, there is some conflict with horse and hiker traffic. In some areas such as Crater Lake, they have a horse route and a foot traffic route. I think this could work for the Ridge Trail where it has narrow trails.
Cyclist come to the parks for the same reason as other park users. Personally I like to ride narrow trails because they’re much more intimate and allows me to get closer to nature. I want to be out in the woods and not on some rutted, dusty, nasty, ranch road or riding down a paved road. How many hikers would rather walk on the road as opposed to a narrow trail? Why in the world would you think I would not want the same nature experience as you?
It would be wrong to assume that all mountain bikers are only interested in the nature experience. A big portion of our enjoyment comes from the trail itself. More than most users, cyclists are much more in tune to the actual trail. It’s not often that you’ll see a hiker or a equestrian stop, reverse course over the same section of trail, and try riding it again. Mountain bikers do it all the time. We base a certain amount of enjoyment on our improving abilities and a technically difficult section of trail is a challenge, not a chore. However, I can assure you that most riders are law-abiding, environmentally sensitive, and safe.
Many of us have been doing trail maintenance for years. I have dug water bars, drainage trenches, grade dips, armored stream crossings, cleared clogged storm drains and culverts, drained and graded boggy stretches of trails, picked up trash, repaired landslides, cut brush, repaired fences, rerouted trails, build new trails, removed non-native plants and organized countless opportunities for other park users to do the same.
I’m a member of the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, Green Peace, and the Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay. By joining BTCEB and riding my bike, I turn into a crazed nature destroyer? While all users affect the trail surface and surrounding environment, there is no evidence that mt bikes cause any greater environmental impact than other trail users. Especially in regards to trail erosion – cyclists cause equal or less soil loss than hikers and SUBSTANTIALLY less than equestrians.
In terms of impacts on wildlife, once again there is scant evidence that bikes cause any greater impacts on a wildlife corridor or create greater avoidance behavior then a hiker. I know of several studies on the interaction of wildlife and trail users.
One in Antelope Island State Park in Utah looked at alert distance, flight response, flight distance, distance fled, and distance from trail of bison, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope. The wildlife exhibited similar response to mt biking and hiking. The wildlife reacted more strongly to off-trail recreationist. (In the EBRPD hikers and equestrians aren’t even restricted to staying on the trail – only cyclists are.)
Another study looked at behavioral response of desert bighorn sheep to disturbances by hikers, mt bikers, and vehicles in Canyon Lands National Park. The sheep fled just over 60% of the time from hikers and only 6% of the time from cyclists. The huge difference was attributed to more off-trail hiking and direct approaches to the sheep by hikers.
A study of the Boise River in Idaho looked at flush distances of bald eagles when exposed to walkers, joggers, fishermen, and cyclists. The highest eagle flushing was associated with walkers, 46% – bicyclists 15%. Bikes did cause eagles to flush at a greater distance. But the eagles where most likely to flush when recreationists approached slowly or stopped to observe them and where less alarmed when bikes passed quickly at constant speeds.
All the existing scientific studies indicate that while mt biking, like all forms of recreation can result in impacts to vegetation, soil, water resources, and wildlife, the environmental impacts are no different from hiking.
As far as bike being a “real hazard”, I see no analytical proof of that that either. I do hear all the subjective horror stories about cyclists. Yet when I travel and ride my bike in the the rest of the U.S. or in national parks in Canada (like Jasper & Banff) multi-use works. Travel outside the East Bay and you’ll find happy multi-use recreationist with no where near the hysteria you find in the East Bay (or Marin).
I think reasonable folks can disagree what constitutes a safe trail. Even the perceived threat can take away from a relaxing trail experience. However I do find it rather perplexing that some folks who are supporters of the Ridge Trail in the East Bay, do not believe that the Ridge Trail should necessarily be multi-use. Once again, I think folks can make arguments both for and against shared use trails. However, I would have thought that the multi-use policy of the Ridge Trail has already been decided and folks agreed that shared use was the preferable option. (Shared use accommodates the most users, helps build community, is more cost effective, makes better use of the available space, and is more environmentally sound.) Please lets not trot out the same old lines about how hikers and horses can’t possible coexist on narrow trails, horror stories of cyclists, and make foolish statements on how cyclists ride or act, or who is more deserving of access.
I think it’s admirable that EBRPD is willing to providing trail use opportunities for all user groups, no matter how many folks are in each group. But it’s hardly appropriate for a public agency to allow a small user group greater access than a larger user group simple because of persistence pressure and historical precedence. The ultimate goal of the Ridge Trail is to provide a continuous MULTI-USE trail for mountain bicyclists, equestrians, and hikers/trail runners of a 550+ mile loop around the Bay Area. If certain sections of the Ridge Trail in the East Bay are narrower than EBRPD 20′ fire roads – so be it. The very point that cyclists have been making for years is we deserve EQUAL access. We are not asking for COMPLETE access, but want a comparable experience to other park users. Cyclists want a VARIETY of trail opportunities. We don’t want to be relegated to the system of hot, dusty, rutted, fire roads that most of us find so unappealing. Just like the hikers and equestrians I would like to have a “through ride” and enjoy camping and biking along the Ridge Trail.
Even though bikes are supposed to yield to horses, and hikers, I have never seen a biker unmount, and yield the right of way on a narrow trail.
Have you ?
Yes, I’ve dismounted many many times.
And a number of those times, I was blatantly ignored by the equestrians I dismounted for.
There are rude people on all sides of a fence
Jg
Tom–
In answer to your question as to who will be going on the East Bay Hills Trails Benefit Hike, well I will. No surprise there, as I am one of the organizers of the event. And at this point we have just over 25 hikers per day. Somebody expressed some misgivings about 75 doing it, but I don’t think we will get to that many this year. It will, however, be a great adventure for all involved. You mention the scenic beauty and the great food, but don’t touch on our evening presentations on wildlife in the East Bay with an EBRPD naturalist, through hiking the John Muir Trail, with Harv and Monica, a drill team performance, a star-gazing visit to the Chabot Space and Science Center through their giant telescopes, and a night dedicated to the Ridge Trail and the memory of Ron Brown, who championed the trail in so many ways and helped organize our first East Bay through hike last year.
And of course if 60 miles and 5 days sounds like too much for anyone reading this, you can also sign up for a day, or two. Check out the flyer on the Ridge Trail web site, http://www.ridgetrail.org where you wil find my number, and feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Morris
Tsiangkun–
As an equestrian and a hiker I can say that I have seen bikes yeild many times, both on narrow trails and on fire roads, and dismount to do so. I will grant that they are more likley to do so when going uphill, as it provides a convenient rest–i Have joked with them about that–but I would estimate that at least 80 % and probably quite a bit more than that of trail bicyclists are good citizens, polite and considerate of other users. There are some who are kind of oblivious, as is anyone, for example, with earphones and music while going down the trail, whatever their mode of transport, and there are a very few who are inconsiderate, sometimes rude, and could care less about rules.
For obvious reasons those are the ones that you, I and others tend to remember the most, but the truth is that they are few and far between, and it is not only bicyclists who occasionally have those personality traits. I have also encountered runners who just run through a group of hikers without slowing down, and a decent number of dog owners who are downright inconsiderate and have no means, ability and sometimes no intention of controlling their dogs.
The nature of human natureseems to include the fact that regardless of what your interests are, some people in any group will disregard established conventions and rules–we certainly cannot expect bicyclists to be different in that regard. Most of them however, are considerate of others. And it is misleading to judge an entire group solely onthe basis of their least cooperative members.
Which doesn’t mean that I always agree with Brent, whom I know in real life. I also have worked a lot on building new and rehabilitating and maintaining old trails, and I am more involved with the Bay Area Ridge Trail than Brent is. The RT is for multi-use wherever possible, but the RT is rarely the group that makes that decision. The RT traverses lands operated by 75 different local, city, state, national and regional parks, wilderness areas, preserves and water sheds, not to mention city streets, and the rules for trails in those places are set by the agencies that manage those lands. The RT has more influence where new trails are being constructed on newly acquired lands and can exert some leverage at those moments to make sure that trails are designed to multi-use standards and open to all users, but in the East Bay the RT primarily crosses parks and traverses trails that were established decades ago, before anyone envisioned the possiblity of mountain biking. Some of these trails are more suited to the speed of mountain biking than others, and EBRPD for one, is more open to it than EBMUD.
The result of the RT’s comitment ot multi use is that of the 315+ miles open and dedciated, 85% is open to mountain bikers, about the same percentage as is open to equestrains–to date 100% is open to hikers. This is not always the same sections–for example where the RT crosses bridges, or goes through city streets, equestrains are not allowed on trail open to bikes. And in the East Bay the percentage open to bikes is much lower than in some other places–for the historical and agency reasons noted in the last paragraph.
At the same time that the Ridge Trail Council works to complete the trail, it is also looking at these old trails where mulit-use is not permitted and attempting to find solutions where possible.
Morris
I know what a beeyotch the section of the trail between Redcwood Regional and Tilden is – I can’t imagine right this second what I’d do if confronted by a bike or a horse there…but hey, when the opportunity presents itself, I guess I’ll find out. Brent, EBRPD is probably going to do just that in many cases – let some of the fire roads be reclaimed by nature where they’re not needed by emergency vehicles. The re – landscaping is another story, as I doubt rock paths will be set up to create a more challenging trail. But I’d love to see a way to widen the Ridge Trail in places so nobody would have to squeeze past in the poison oak. That would require a lot of behind the scenes work – scoping endangered species habitat and doing a study on the effect of widening on the surrounding trees. Roots are abundant on that stretch (ask me how I know!:-) ). And I’ve had no issues with MTB’ers in our frequent meetings on trails. Consider what must happen before a trail is built or changed before criticizing the owning entity. I could name state and federal agencies galore who have a say in whether a trail is built, modified or changed to open usage to additional user groups, if one or two are currently prohibited. The project now is to shorten the length of time a modification takes. I think the first step is to work on extending access for bikes in places where new EIR’s and sensitive habitat studies won’t be necessary. I’ve pissed off more than a few people when I’m out on single track trails, so I know what you go through. At least I have the ADA to sit on….. 🙂
Hey Tom,
Great site! I recently started the project of creating GPS tracks for the Ridge Trail. One significant problem is getting a detailed route through San Francisco. Any ideas? Thanks, J J